Three Graphic Artists

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Three Graphic Artists

Charles White
David Hammons
Timothy Washington

Acknowledgments

This exhibition owes its being to the
exemplary cooperation and generosity of the
lenders as well as to that of the artists
themselves. We should like here to express
our deep appreciation to Mr. Benjamin
Horowitz, of the Heritage Gallery, and to
Messrs. Alonzo and Dale Davis, of the
Brockman Gallery, for their unfailing support
and assistance every step of the way, and
to the many lenders to the exhibition, including
Mr. and Mrs. Andy Bookman; Mr. and Mrs.

M. T. Bryant; Mr. and Mrs. William Cosby, Jr.;
Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Davis; Forum Gallery,

New York; Dr. and Mrs. Edmund W. Gordon;
Mrs. Lee Graff; Mr. and Mrs. David Hammons;
Heritage Gallery; Dr. and Mrs. Stanley
Hoffman; Dr. and Mrs. Bertram V. Karpf;

Mr. and Mrs. Irving Monarch; Dr. and Mrs.

Ernst Plesset; Mr. Lawrence Roberts; Bettye
Saar; Dr. and Mrs. George Sealy; Mr. and Mrs.
Edwin H. Seigel; Mr. Alan Sieroty; Mr. and
Mrs. Isaac D. Sinaiko; Mr. and Mrs. George
Slaff; Mr. and Mrs. Jack L. Stein; Mr. and
Mrs. Payson Wolff; Dr. and Mrs. William C.
Wright; and an anonymous lender.

Sincere thanks are extended to the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s
Technical Services staff, headed by James
Allen; to the Photography Laboratory directed
by Ed Cornachio; to the Registrar’s Office
headed by Mrs. Gloria Cortella; to Vincent
Robbins and Richard Hattori of the Graphic
Design Department; to the staff of the
Exhibitions and Publications Department;
to Mrs. Annette Epstein, Secretary to the
Department of Prints and Drawings for
multitudinous duties; and to Joseph E. Young,
the Department’s Assistant, for his
comprehensive and illuminating catalog.
Finally, the Department is profoundly grateful
to the Director and the Board of Trustees for
making the exhibition and catalog possible.

Foreword

Three Graphic Artists

It is a pleasure for the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art to present Three Graphic
Artists, an exhibition which juxtaposes
traditional and contemporary techniques in
a most arresting and compelling manner.

The power of these three black artists, each
represented by a distinctive style, resides in
their profound human concern and their
vigorous, often novel, search for forceful
means of expressing it in graphic language.

Striking among the phenomena of our times
are the inexhaustible “new ways of gravure”
which have enabled printmaking to emerge as
one of the most dynamic art forms of the
twentieth century. Printmaking has, throughout
its history, lent itself to radical development
and innovation thanks to the sculptural and
chemical aspects of its processes. The art
of making incisions in a hard sCirface to
remove parts of the material, whether as
carving or in decoration, is as old as antiquity.
Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar was an
avid collector of “gems and engravings;” but
in ancient times engravings meant, as they
mean to one of the artists in the present
exhibition, metal surfaces designed with an
engraving tool. Furthermore, the term
“engraving” referred originally to the metal
plate and not to the print taken from it.

With the introduction of acid etching in the
sixteenth century, printmaking was radically
altered from its quasi-sculptural, or carving,
technique, preparing for the freedom of
Rembrandt. Even more revolutionary was the
discovery of lithography, or chemical stone
printing, which, in the time of Daumier,
changed the face and form of communication
and illustration. Today, many artists believe
that prints should be three-dimensional, that
the use of material is unrestricted, and
that techniques and concepts should be
governed solely by the creative spirit.

Thus, the unorthodox processes of David
Hammons and Timothy Washington reflect the
continuing vitality of the metamorphosing
world of graphic art. Traditional definitions
and categories are not pertinent to the bold,
independent techniques of these artists who
employ their fresh, striking methods to extend
the boundaries of visual impact and
emotional stimulus. Hammons’ dramatic
process of “self-printing” literally involves
his whole physical being, while Washington’s
return to the classical presence of the
engraved metal itself is the all-encompassing
fact of his intaglio technique.

In contrast to these newer forms of graphic
expression stands the monumental work, the
quieter drama of the doyen of American black
artists, the profoundly human Charles White
who preserves the image of man in the
Renaissance sense and ennobles him with a
large and timeless approach. Drawing is the
most autographic of all the arts and, as a

medium, requires the most intimate and
refined response to be understood and
appreciated. It retains the magic of immediacy,
whether created in the spontaneity of the
initial idea or elaborated into a finished work.
White’s calm, heroic figures embody the
changeless, enduring bedrock of humanity—its
age-old sorrows, its redeeming compassion.
While the works by David Hammons and
Timothy Washington included in this
exhibition were all created within the last two
years, White’s drawings shown here cover a
period of some seven years. In his recent
drawings, paralleled in terms of complexity by
the lithographs he executed at the Tamarind
Lithography Workshop, the images are woven
into a brilliant kaleidoscope of modulated
planes and shapes. This break-up of the
background field behind his patient figures
seems like a symbolic and echoing refraction
of their changing human condition.

Ebria Feinblatt

“Three Graphic Artists” is an exhibition of
prints and drawings by contemporary
Los Angeles artists whose productions are
often of a public rather than a private nature ^
and whose effectiveness in appealing to a
large audience is increased by their utilization t
of the human figure in their compositions.

In spite of their many thematic affinities, each 6
artist has produced works that are easily
distinguishable and that bear the unmistakable
stamp of but one person. It is this impressive
mark of originality which imparts to this
exhibition so much of its stirring vitality.

A decisive factor contributing to the selection
of these works was their technical and
aesthetic excellence. These qualities, in
conjunction with their visual impact, enabled
them to enter the domain once inhabited
solely by painting. Consequently, one is almost
tempted to refer to many of the works on
view as “paintings,” which they are not.
Moreover, the formal expression of all three
artists has evolved from the long-standing
tradition of the graphic arts. In this exhibition
dry-point is not used to make intaglio prints
but is employed to create engravings on
aluminum plates. In the same defiance of
tradition, oil-based pigments are used to create
large-scale drawings on mounted paper
rather than oil paintings. And, one artist uses
his own body to create unique images which f
are related to, but differ strikingly from,
conventional monoprints.

Another hallmark of this exhibition is the
degree to which each artist acknowledges his
awareness of man in relation to society and
the role of the community in relation to man
himself. Although occasionally the traditional
device of using a particular contemporary
incident to imply the general dilemma
confronting mankind is employed, for the
most part the prints and drawings exhibited
are not specifically derived from the events of
contemporary society. All of the works
displayed are intended by the artists subtly
to invite the viewer into a thoughtful,
contemplative state of awareness—of himself
and the larger role he plays as a social
creature. Indeed, it is the universal expression
of man’s basic humanity which makes this
exhibition significant for all persons who are
genuinely interested in the continuing
expansion of Western art.

4

Charles White

My work takes shape around images and ideas
that are centered within the vortex of a black
life experience, a nitty-gritty ghetto experience
resulting in contradictory emotions: anguish,
hope, love, despair, happiness, faith, lack of
faith, dreams. Yet stubbornly holding on to an
elusive romantic belief that the people of
this land cannot always be insensible to the
dictates of justice or deaf to the voice of
humanity

Charles White was born in Chicago, Illinois
in 1918 and, as a young boy, painted reality as
he knew it—the community in which he lived
with its dilapidated buildings and its ghetto
streets. This was White’s “landscape” as the
streets of New York were for the earlier
American Ashcan School of painters. When he
was fourteen years old, White became a
professional sign painter, and in his last year
of high school he was granted a year’s
scholarship at the Art Institute of Chicago. He
later joined the Works Project Administration,
and in 1940, when he was twenty-two, the
young artist was commissioned to do a mural
on the history of the American Negro Press. 2
The following year Charles White was the
recipient of a Rosenwald grant which he used
to go to the southern states where he made
sketches for a mural depicting the
development of the Negro in American history.
The finished painting resulting from these
sketches now hangs in the Hampton Institute
in Virginia. 3 By 1947 White had his first
one-man show in New York, and during the
ensuing years his works have been widely
exhibited and acquired by collectors and
major museums throughout the United States
and Europe. In 1956 he came to California and
in 1965 began to instruct at the Otis Art
Institute where he continues to teach the craft
which has made him world renowned.

At seventeen, while studying at the Art Institute
of Chicago, White made his first lithograph.
Since that time, the artist acknowledged:

“I’ve always been turned on by lithography,
but there hasn’t always been the opportunity
to do it because of the physical difficulties
involved. I haven’t always had the availability
of a press, but whenever I have had the
opportunity, I’ve always been excited about
lithographs.” 4 One such opportunity came in
1966 when the artist was commissioned to
execute Exodus II at Gemini G.E.L. in
Los Angeles. This work presents a monolithic
image of a single figure and formally contrasts
with the 1970 series of lithographs by the
artist which integrates the two-dimensional
background with the three-dimensional human
image. The crouched figure found in two
of last year’s series of lithographs evolved
from a related figure in White’s earlier
drawing, Wanted Series #10. This drawing
depicts an infant in swaddling clothes and,
above the Christ-like child, a horizontally-
placed crouched figure convincingly integrated
into the composition. Regarding this image

which later appears in the two lithographs,
the artist stated:

The concept of a crouched figure intrigued
me when I did the initial drawing, and I thought
that it would be very exciting to do a double
image of it. You know, sometimes I want to
explore the possibilities of a given image and
investigate and possibly establish a new
meaning for that image in a new medium.

In contrast to his many years of experience in
lithography, dry-point is a relatively new
medium of expression for White who made
Matriarch, his first print using this technique,
in 1970. The artist originally planned to work
in etching, but when he found that he could
not safely expose himself to the acids
necessary for this technique, he naturally
turned to dry-point which does not depend
upon chemicals to produce its effect. In this
process a dry-point tool is employed to incise
lines into a copper plate, thereby producing
a “furrow” similar to those found in plowed
fields. A dry-point “furrow” is called a “burr.”
This ridge of metal catches and holds the
ink in the wiping of the plate for printing,
creating an especially velvety and rich effect.

About his use of conte crayon or charcoal,

Mr. White related:

I begin to work lightly in halftones which I fix
very strongly. I then work from that and fix
another layer as I keep building up the
composition. In this way, when I work with
conte or charcoal, I can get very strong blacks
because of the chemical reaction of the
fixative to the medium that I’m working on
top of. Using this method I can get a far more
extensive range of values than I would
ordinarily.

As with all of his drawings, those executed by
White in oil colors may take six weeks or
sometimes even longer to create because the
artist constucts his pictures very slowly and
carefully, one layer upon another. His initial
step, since he does not use models, is to
establish his preliminary composition on heavy
architectural tracing paper. The carefully
devised composition is then transferred to the
support which is often paper mounted on
artificial board because, says the artist:

I can go practically any size that I like to work
on. Besides, I very often abuse a surface
harshly since I scrub into it with rags and a
lot of tools. For instance, in my monochro¬
matic oil drawings, I use Q-tips, Kleenex, rags,
balsa wood, brushes, and a whole slew of
other things besides—all in one given work.

Once his drawing is transferred to the
mounted paper, White no longer refers to his
preliminary tracing paper studies. He com¬
mences anew as if he had just started thereby
insuring a spontaneity and a freshness in his

5

works which the mechanical transfer of his
preliminary study would necessarily lose.

In talking about his early work, Mr. White
reminded the author that he had been
primarily a painter, although he added:

Drawing has always been a particularly
exciting medium for me, and I’ve always felt
that to think of one medium as superior to
another or more important than another is a
false concept. Lately I’ve been drawing in a
monochromatic burnt umber, and though it is
an oil color, I consider these works drawings
because I approach them in the same manner
as I do my drawings executed in other media.

Because graphic images are more easily
reproduced than paintings and, therefore,
can more easily be disseminated to the public,
Charles White, who has a profound respect
and admiration for the human race,
increasingly has turned to drawing as a means
of communication. This desire to produce an
art which the many rather than the few can
enjoy also stems from the influence of another
culture to the south of the United States, a
culture which has deeply influenced the
heritage of California in the past and is once
again through Charles White transmitting
its message of life and man.

It was in the late 1930’s that White first
became aware of Diego Rivera, who was then
executing his murals in the United States:

I found a strong affinity in terms of my goals
as an artist and what they represented. And I
could think of no better thing to happen to
me than to have the opportunity to go to
Mexico. And I never dreamed that I would.

It just worked out.

In later years White was invited to make prints
at the internationally acclaimed Taller de
Gr£fica in Mexico City. He lived at that time
with David Siqueiros and consequently met
the other leading Mexican artists of the time
such as Rivera and Orozco. This was in 1946
when foreign artists throughout the world
were being invited as guests to partake of
these prestigious facilities. Charles White
was highly esteemed by his hosts; he stayed
two years, and was invited to become a
member of their group. Indeed, the admiration
and respect of the Mexican people was
reciprocated by White who was profoundly
affected by this contact. At the Mexican
graphic workshop the artists involved were
primarily dealing with linoleum prints and
lithography as a natural outgrowth of the
earlier concept of Posada who was one of the
world’s greatest popular printmakers. It was
also at this time, said White, that he realized:

Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and
Orozco were doing the same thing as I, but in
an even more social way than I was oriented
to .... And for the first time I realized that

another ethnic group was drawing upon its
culture, whereas previously I hadn’t felt that
strongly about it when I related to the art of
John Sloan or George Luks .... And here was
the more intimate way of a person whose
life it was. He wasn’t just the observer as the
Ashcan School painters were. The Mexican
artist was the participant, and this was
another plateau for me to arrive at, and this
was the first time that I became conscious
of how I was actually relating to my own
scene, but at the Taller de Gr&fica they gave
me the tools to articulate better, more so than
the Ashcan School.

Back in the United States White began to
realize that most of the people who had
purchased his art had been either upper
middle class individuals or museums and that
this had not been his intention:

The primary audience that I was addressing
myself to was really the masses of black
people, and they were not turning out in
hundreds to see my shows, and I had to find
some way of reaching them, since my subject
matter was related to them and should be
made available to them, particularly in a
national way.

Later, when White was approached to have a
portfolio of his drawings reproduced, he
immediately recognized the offer as the
opportunity he had been looking for.
Consequently he created a suite of drawings
especially for his 1953 Portfolio of Six
Drawings—The Art of Charles White. This was
followed by the 1961 Portfolio 10/Charles
White and the 1964 Portfolio 6/—

Charles White.

The themes that Mr. White explores center
about the universal conflicts that involve all
mankind. They include, among others, the
relationship of man to man, social or economic
dislocations, the opposition of love and hate,
and the never-ending problems of justice
and injustice. For, as the artist stated:

I deal with ideas as an educator or a philoso¬
pher. This is my life’s work, and I treat this
responsibility very seriously. Consequently,

I don’t release works that I am not comfortable
with myself, in the sense that I have fulfilled
my responsibility of having dealt with an idea.

I am concerned about my fellow man. I am
concerned with the survival of man. I am
concerned with the progress that man has
made in relation to his fellow man, in relation
to nature, in trying to find a more beautiful
way of life _ lam trying to fulfill my responsi¬

bility to myself and to express my gratitude
for the privilege that I’ve had of living with
my fellow man. I want to pour something into
life—perhaps a little bit more than I’ve gotten
out of it. Now that sounds awfully platitudinous,
but that’s really the way I feel about it.

6

David Hammons

I feel that my art relates to my total environment
—my being a black, political, and social
human being. Although I am involved with
communicating with others, I believe that my
art itself is really my statement. For me it
has to be. s

David Hammons was born in 1943 in
Springfield, Illinois and, finding his hometown
rather small and dull, came to Los Angeles
when he was twenty. Having seen so many
Hollywood movies, he expected to find the
landscape littered with skyscrapers and
everyone living in apartment buildings, and
with his arrival in Los Angeles in 1963 the
misconception was quickly dispelled. After
attending Los Angeles City College for a year,
he transferred to the Los Angeles Trade-
Technical College where he studied adver¬
tising art from 1966 to 1968 and simultaneously
took evening and weekend classes at the
Otis Art Institute. Then, according to the artist:

I had my first commercial art job, and this
blew my head off. I couldn’t believe it—those
deadlines and everything. Like, every job
I did you had to put down the starting time
and the ending time too. So I dropped out of
that and went to Chouinard.

When asked about those artists whom he
considered as an influence on his own work,
Hammons replied that he had taken a drawing
class with Charles White at the Otis Art
Institute in Los Angeles because:

I never knew there were ‘black’ painters, or
artists, or anything until I found out about him
—which was maybe three years ago. There’s
no way I could have got the information in
my art history classes. It’s like I just found out
a couple of years ago about Negro cowboys,
and I was shocked about that. b

In a more recent interview, Hammons stated
of White:

He’s the only artist that I really related to
because he is black and I am black, plus
physically seeing him and knowing him. Like,
he’s the first and only artist that I’ve ever
really met who had any real stature. And just
being in the same room with someone like
that you’d have to be directly influenced. 7

Before he studied with Charles White,

David Hammons had become familiar with the
senior artist’s work through exhibitions and
reproductions. He was especially drawn to
White’s figures with their exaggerated
gestures, often enlarged hands, and generally
unsmiling visages which, for Hammons,
possess an “agonized” look:

In most of Charles White’s art there aren’t
too many people smiling, and I like that in his
things. There’s always an agonized kind
of look, I think, because there aren’t many

pleasant things in his past. He’s gone through
a lot of Hell. I know he has.

Unlike White’s pictures, which over the years
have presented an heroic, idealized, and
seemingly timeless panorama of humanity, the
images in David Hammons’ “body prints”
appear to capture a single moment in time,
as if, in many instances, they have been frozen
in actual movement. Hammons has stated
that he prefers to create his art without any
message at all, feeling that messages are
aesthetically restrictive. 8 Nevertheless, he is
deeply affected by the events of our times:

I just can’t sit down with something political
in mind and try to make something. I can’t
work like that.... I’m still political at times,
but I don’t want to be; but there are so
many political issues that come up, and ...
they bother me.

Contemporary events have already influenced
Hammons’ art which, on occasion, does
seem to have political and/or social overtones.
An example is Black First, American Second
which results from the artist’s belief that
an American Negro for the sake of personal
survival must consider himself first as a
Negro and second as an American. Other
works by Hammons, such as Injustice Case,
refer to civil liberties abuses and political
injustices. More often, however, Hammons’
pictures border on the surreal. This is true
of Close Your Eyes and See Black where
various imprints of the artist’s body are
repeated and formally integrated to create
a new vision which seems to inhabit the
world of art alone.

The monotype technique, originated by
G. B. Castiglione in the seventeenth century,
was widely employed during the nineteenth
century by many notable artists including
Whistler, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and
Degas. A traditional monotype or monoprint
is a single, unique impression made from an
image which has been painted or drawn, often
with printers’ ink or oil paint, on a hard surface
such as glass, wood, or metal. The actual print
is achieved by placing a sheet of paper on the
drawn image and then either running the
paper and the “plate” through a press or, as
one does for a woodblock print, rubbing
the paper from behind to print the image.

Like monoprints, Hammons’ pictures
are unique works of art. But, contrary to
the traditional monotype technique, his
“body prints” employ powdered pigments
rather than oil paint or printers’ ink, and
the actual “plate” from which the artist
prints is his own pliable body instead
of a hard surface.

“I draw a lot from live models,” Hammons
recently stated, “because I’m really surprised
how much it helps when I make ‘body
prints.’ That’s what I really love—drawing the

7

nude, and I’ve been doing this for about
eight years now.” Even so, he does not make
a preliminary sketch for his prints, preferring
to work directly on the smooth surface of
illustration board which he finds especially
responsive. As a preliminary step to “printing,”
the artist lightly coats his body, his clothing,
and even his hair with margarine, having
first selected the fabrics that he wears
according to their physical structure:

I generally try to use corduroy in all of my
things because of the textures it produces.
That’s why I like to use my wife’s lace
tablecloths, since the ‘body print’ technique
seems to recreate every thread.

The artist has stated that in some of his
pictures he has been able to reproduce even
the veins in his body and the texture
of his skin.

Having first coated with margarine those
surfaces that he will “print,” Hammons next
presses his clothing and his body against
the illustration board which he places either
on the floor or on the wall depending on
the intensity of the image he desires.

A lighter impression is produced when the
paper support is placed against the wall
since this position enables Hammons
to more easily control the pressure of
his margarine-coated surfaces.

One of the many difficulties involved in the
production of “body prints” is the hazard of
smudging the picture while it is being
produced. This is especially the case when
Hammons creates his images on the floor:

When I lie down on the paper which is first
placed on the floor, I have to carefully decide
how to get up after I have made the impression
that I want. Sometimes I lie there for perhaps
three minutes or even longer just figuring
out how I can get off the paper without
smudging the image that I’m trying to print.

Once he has physically disentangled himself
from the illustration board, Hammons sifts
powdered pigments through a strainer to make
a fine mist that completely covers the work
still in process. As the fine pigment slowly
descends like a cloud of dust, the color
is captured more intensely in those areas
of the paper which have absorbed the
“printed” margarine film. Simultaneously,
the “unprinted” background of the paper
often acquires a slight haze of color.

This situation occurred in Injustice Case
where the artist chose to erase the
background around the “printed” image.
However, when Hammons employs
certain types of illustration board, such
as the black board used in Stars on Sleeve
and Black First, American Second, the
white powdered pigment does not adhere
to the background to any noticeable
degree, and, therefore, it is not necessary
for him to erase the background.

Like the pastel drawings of other artists,
Hammons’ “body prints” are sprayed with a
fixative. But, unlike most pastel drawings
which have a tendency to become less
brilliant after being so treated, the colors
of Hammons’ prints, when sprayed with
a fixative, tend to become more intense,
especially when he uses oil-base rather
than water-base pigments.

In many of his pictures, particularly those
in which he utilizes the image of the American
flag, Hammons combines “body printing”
and the silkscreen technique:

I always do the ‘body print’ first. Then I decide
where the image of the flag will be. I must
print in this sequence because the ‘body print’
technique is so uncertain as to how it
will actually turn out.

What is remarkable in his works is the
superior formal and aesthetic unity that he
is able to achieve while integrating two
techniques. From a distance such works as
Stars on Sleeve and Black First, American
Second appear to have been produced
by a single method of printmaking.

For David Hammons one of the main
enjoyments of his craft is the element
of “surprise”:

That’s why I love printing, because there’s
a surprise. You really can’t tell what you’ve
got until you lift up the paper. You know,
in painting you work with it, and you see
the results as you are working so that you
can’t really see the picture when you’re
finished with it unless you put it away for
a month or so. Then you can look at your
painting again and see it from a different
angle. And ‘body printing’ is no different as
far as the element of surprise is concerned.
Especially when I use cloth that I have
wrapped around myself. I had no idea
originally that all those wrinkles and all
those folds would actually turn out like
that. I just couldn’t believe it. I still can’t
believe what I see sometimes.

Hammons is constantly impelled to seek
new means of expression. His most recent
works have begun the rather complex
investigations of multiple colors in a single
“body print;” and he is, at present,
considering working on a grand scale “where
the artist is so small in relation to his
work — like an architect looking up at a huge
building that he designed.” It was originally
this same sort of adventurous search
for new imagery that led David Hammons
to develop the “body print” into a
significant graphic expression.

1

l

8

Timothy Washington

I am dealing with message art: it is informative
and relates to a poster in that it gives
information. However, I want the information
to be discovered; therefore the message
is subtle. I try to ask questions and make the
viewer think and in turn look closer.

I feel that there are no shortcuts in life.

We have to stop and gather up bits of
knowledge as we go along, to form a total.

My separate, direct strokes—each line
is an effort to form a whole.

I am not trying to change society but create
an awareness, because awareness can
curb or change reactions in the future.

I am also concerned with bringing people
back to nature. I try to make people aware
of plant and animal life.

I use simple shapes because modern society
trends deal toward simplicity. The oval
[circular] eyes are because they can capture
several goals, beliefs, norms, and
mysteries. They have a tendency to leave
an imprint on your brain, or an after
image. I am concerned with the effect my
work leaves on people and their
reactions. Each piece says something,
whether for or against the establishment.

Technology has advanced, and I want to
work with a material that says ‘today/

I started working with aluminum because
I wanted to work on a cold material.

It is a challenge to create warmth from
a cold, hard material. 9

Timothy Washington was born in the Watts
area of Los Angeles in 1946. He relates
that when he was in the third grade at the
Virginia Road Elementary School and
was working on a mural with the other
students he had his first chance to really
express himself through art. According
to Washington:

For some reason most of the other kids
in the class weren’t too interested in doing
the mural, and so I had to do most
of it. Surprisingly, the rest of the class
was very much impressed . ,0

Following this auspicious beginning
Washington found himself in Mt. Vernon
Junior High School and later in Dorsey
High School. By the twelfth grade he recalls
that, “I was the only one who had Life
Drawing VII or VIII or whatever it was.

Nearly everyone else in the class was
taking Life Drawing I or II.” As a senior in
high school, he won a scholarship to
the Chouinard Art School. This he renewed
for four years until he graduated with
a B.F.A. degree in 1969. While the artist was
still attending Chouinard, his style was
rapidly acquiring its now distinctive mark.

He was even then “redesigning” the
human figure. “I would change the way I saw
things,” he related, “to give the picture
more visual impact.” And, in the latter part
of 1967 a class assignment was given
that was to change the course of
Washington’s future:

I was in class, and our problem was to do
something that we would consider very
personal. And I think it was the very same day
that I went home and found that I was
reclassified for the draft as 1-A. So, I knew
that I was going to make something
relating to the army or war. I wanted to
work on a substance that was cold and hard,
and I thought of aluminum as a material
that I would like to work on. The first piece that
I did on aluminum was a triptych which was
a social commentary against wars.

A technique present in the artist’s first
aluminum picture is still found in his later
works. Washington initially sprays a
sheet of aluminum with enamel paint and
then carefully scratches the plate with
an etching needle. Most artists would
consider this a “dry-point” technique,
would ink the resultant plate, and would
print from it. This, however, is not the
case for Timothy Washington though he
is fully aware that he could print from
many of these engraved plates:

But.I also feel that if I tried to print from
them they would lose a great deal. I like them
as they exist right now without trying
to print from them, because paper says a
certain thing to me, and aluminum says
another, and to print on paper would take
away from the luminous quality you
have in aluminum.

Washington is no stranger to traditional
printmaking, having practiced etching,
dry-point, and silkscreen techniques, but
even as a student he discovered:

When I had an etching class, the plate
seemed much more fascinating to me than
the print itself. And I wondered about
boundaries in art. Why should the plate be
considered something to use to make a
paper print when I loved the plate so much
more? The plate said so much more
to me because it had me within it.

Ignoring artificial boundaries in art,
Washington has created many recent
dry-point engravings on aluminum panels
which combine with other materials
to create complex pictorial collages. Raw
Truth, Why Poverty? and Ghetto are all
examples of his efforts to combine various
media. Raw Truth integrates a sculptural
section of a wooden yoke for cattle into
a composition of a standing figure and an
exquisitely drawn cow. Why Poverty?

9

Notes

incorporates an actual wheel of a child’s
wagon into the physical structure of
the picture. Ghetto is still another example
of the artist’s juxtaposition of different
materials—in this case leather against metal.
The figure in this picture is that of a
woman whose extended left arm holds
a rat and from whose neck protrudes
the head of a cat. The woman’s hair is made
from a ragged leather baseball mitt.

In talking about his mixed-media pieces,
Washington stated:

In these works there's a large amount of hand
sanding and construction. In some pieces
like Exist / have formed the metal itself. That
whole piece was aluminum, and I sanded
and worked back and forth and shaped
the breasts with a hammer. And in much
of my work there are some areas that
are often painted on, and there are also
so many applications of other materials
that I don’t think they can really be
called drawings or even given a specific
label because they seem to go so much
beyond any specific category.

Even when Washington’s dry-point engravings
incorporate sculptural elements, they
remain unquestionably pictorial because
there is always a sense of containment.

This stems largely from the artist’s respect
for the framing edge of his pictures.

In describing his collage-approach to his
metal engravings, Washington said:

It seems to me that if you incorporate
different media into one work, the visual
impact will be greater because you begin
to see form. Also, I can incorporate the
differences of the cold metal and the warmth
of leather. I feel that by using all of these
materials it will, hopefully,'pull the viewer in.’
Just as there are differences in life
today, I feel that some of these differences
can be applied to art.

This artist has chosen to work with the figure
because it allows him to communicate
more easily with his audience. He considers
his role as a creator to require him to
comment on issues and events of the present
and the past. This he does as gently as
possible because one of his basic premises
is that most people “resent being told
anything” and have a better chance of
re-examining their thinking if they can
make their own discoveries. He believes
that by referring subtly in his pictures
to present and past events he will create
messages with a timeless quality:

Often, I comment about things of the past,
but I try to bring things up to date in
a manner which will be significant for today,
although the event itself may have
occurred in the past. I believe that something
like the Bible may talk about things

of the past, but it also has messages that
can be related to today.

Washington’s pictures also employ highly
personal symbols. For example, the cattle yoke
incorporated into Raw Truth represents
to him an aspect of the past which can be
re-interpreted in our own time. Contemporary
society is represented in this work by
a figure which is bending a stick:

I feel that a given society or the system
that we live in can only bear a certain amount
of pressure before it breaks down.

That’s why in Raw Truth there is the bending
of the stick. The cow in relation to the
figure applies to life itself and its relationship
to knowledge. The cow demands a certain
amount of responsibility, and in return we get
milk from it. This is a give-and-take situation
which I feel should be applied to life.

That the highly personal content of
Washington’s works is somewhat elusive
does not disturb the artist who feels that if
his work stimulates thought of any kind,
it has succeeded. For those persons who
know and love the graphic arts—especially
when they utilize highly accomplished
and sophisticated draftsmanship—Timothy
Washington’s enigmatic pictures should
easily provide the aesthetic stimulation and
enjoyment which we experience from much
of the significant graphic art of the past.

Joseph E. Young

‘Charles White, “Wanted Poster Series,”
portfolio of drawings (Los Angeles:

Heritage Gallery, 1970).

2 Benjamin Horowitz, “Images of Dignity:

The Drawings of Charles White,” in
Charles White Drawings (Washington, D.C.:
Howard University, 1967) p. 9.

3/b/d. p. 14.

4 Unless otherwise cited, all remarks by the
artist are from an interview with the author on
December 16, 1970.

statement prepared by David Hammons
especially for this catalog.

6 Joseph E. Young, “Los Angeles,” Art Inter¬
national, XIV (October 20, 1970), p. 74.

7 AII statements by David Hammons in this
essay are taken from interviews the
artist granted the author on May 2,1970
and December 28, 1970. Portions of
the first interview have been published in
“Los Angeles,” Art International, XIV
(October 20, 1970), p. 74.

8 /b/d. p. 74.

’Statement prepared by Timothy Washington
especially for this catalog.

l0 Unless otherwise cited, all remarks by

the artist are from an interview with the author

on December 26, 1970.

10

Catalog Listing

Charles White

1 ROOTS, 1964

Ink drawing, 36 V 2 " x53V2"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Payson Wolff

2 NOW I LAY DOWN MY HEAVY LOAD, 1964
Chinese ink, 47V2" x28"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Sinaike

3 MICAH, 1964

Li nocut, 48" x 39"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. George Slaff

4 I’M ON MY WAY TO CANAAN, 1964
Charcoal drawing, 51" x 40"

Private Collection, Los Angeles

5 SATURDAY’S CHILD, 1965
Ink drawing, 671/2" x 4114"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Hoffman

6 J’ACCUSE #1, 1966
Charcoal drawing, 50" x 36"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Bertram V. Karpf

7 J’ACCUSE #2, 1966
Charcoal drawing, 34" x 24"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Jack L. Stein

8 J’ACCUSE #5, 1966
Charcoal drawing, 50" x 36"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Ernst Plesset

9 J’ACCUSE #7, 1966
Charcoal drawing, 48" x 60"

Lent by Mrs. Lee Graff

10 J’ACCUSE #8, 1966
Charcoal drawing, 42"x51V2"

Lent by Mr. Lawrence Roberts

11 PAPER SHELTER, 1967
Mixed-media drawing, 48" x 60"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. William Cosby, Jr.

12 I HAVE A DREAM SERIES #3, 1968
Charcoal drawing, 48" x 60"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin H. Seigel

13 I HAVE A DREAM SERIES #5, 1968
Charcoal drawing, 15"x15 3 A"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Irving Monarch

14 SEED OF LOVE, 1969
Ink drawing, 51" x 36"

Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Museum Acquisition Fund

15 WANTED POSTER SERIES #7, 1970
Oil drawing, 38" x 48"

Lent by Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles
Forum Gallery, New York

16 WANTED POSTER SERIES #10, 1970
Oil drawing, 40" x 60"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Edmund W. Gordon

17 WANTED POSTER SERIES #16, 1970
Oil drawing, 60" x 40"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. William C. Wright

18 WANTED POSTER SERIES #17, 1971
Oil drawing, 60" x 30"

Lent by Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles

David Hammons

19 EAST SIDE WEST SIDE, 1969
Body print, 40" x 30"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Andy Bookman

20 A CRY FROM THE INSIDE, 1969
Body print, 30" x 40"

Lent by Bettye Saar

21 MAN IN GRASS, 1970
Body print, 52" x 34"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

22 MULTI-COLORED FIGURE, 1970
Body print, 40" x 32"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

23 BLACK FIRST, AMERICAN SECOND, 1970
Body print and silkscreen, 40" x 30"
Collection of the Artist

24 DRINKER, 1970
Body print, 40" x 30"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

25 CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SEE BLACK, 1970
Body print, 37" x 26"

Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Davis

26 STARS ON SLEEVE, 1970

Body print and silkscreen, 28" x 19"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

27 BLUE FEMALE FIGURE, 1970
Body print, 60" x 40"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

28 SEXY SUE, 1970
Body print, 60" x 40"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

29 INJUSTICE CASE, 1970
Mixed-media, 63"x40V2"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

30 SPADE, 1970

Body print and silkscreen, 53V4" x35V4"
Lent by Mr. Alan Sieroty

Timothy Washington

31 INTRODUCTION TO LIFE, 1969
Engraving on aluminum, 36" x 36"

Lent by Dr. and Mrs. George Sealy

32 INTRODUCTORY TITLE, 1969
Engraving on aluminum, 36" x 36"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

33 RAW TRUTH, 1970
Mixed-media, 35" x 35"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

34 EXIST, 1970
Mixed-media, 35" x 35"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

35 INQUISITIVE PRESENTATION, 1970
Engraving on aluminum, 30" x 20"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

36 PRECAUTION, 1970
Engraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

37 WHY POVERTY?, 1970
Mixed-media, 36" x 36"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

38 PARAKEETS, 1970

Engraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"

Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Museum Acquisition Fund

39 ONE NATION UNDER GOD, 1970
Engraving on aluminum and added color,
35"x 48"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

40 GHETTO, 1970
Mixed-media, 35" x 35"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

41 LIBERTY, 1971

Engraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

14

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
January 26, 1971 -March 7, 1971

Santa Barbara Museum of Art
March 20, 1971-April 18, 1971